


living on anaesthetic

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Hypothermia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Snark, The Great Arctic Outbreak of 1899, Timeless Fanfic Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: For the July Timeless Fanfic Contest. Prompt: Cold temperatures force characters into close proximity.“Fine. We can go throw a wrench in Rittenhouse’s plans. But for the record, this sucks.”For once, Flynn looks like he might actually agree with Rufus, although as usual, he doesn’t say anything to that effect.“Just one thing,” Flynn finally says as they head towards the clothing warehouse. “It’s going to be cold.”Wyatt groans.





	living on anaesthetic

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags. Title from "Anaesthetic" by Thomston.

“Hey, guys?” Rufus calls from the computer desk. “What’s special about February 6, 1899?”

“Where?” Lucy asks.

“D.C.”

At his place on a bench in the corner, Flynn doesn’t look up from cleaning his gun, but he tosses out, “The U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris.”

“I thought that ended the Revolutionary War,” Wyatt says.

Flynn snorts, but doesn’t respond. 

_Helpful. Jerk_ , Wyatt thinks. 

Lucy, however, _is_ helpful, turning to him after leveling an exasperated look in Flynn’s direction. 

“There was more than one,” she explains. “This one ended the Spanish-American War and led to U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Senate vote to ratify the treaty was extremely contentious—it only passed with one vote more than it needed.”

“Wait a second,” Rufus interrupts, spinning his chair around and crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you telling me this treaty is the reason we still have “territories” today? Because I’m going to be honest, I’m not really here for encouraging America to be a hypocritical colonial power.” 

“A lot of those senators would agree with you,” Lucy acknowledges. “But if Rittenhouse is trying to mess with the ratification...we have no way of knowing what the outcome would be.”

“So much for no taxation without representation,” he mutters before raising his voice again. “Fine. We can go throw a wrench in Rittenhouse’s plans. But for the record, this sucks.”

For once, Flynn looks like he might actually agree with Rufus, although as usual, he doesn’t say anything to that effect.

“Just one thing,” Flynn finally says as they head towards the clothing warehouse. “It’s going to be cold.”

Wyatt groans.

* * *

“I’m sorry, what?”

They’ve landed in 1899, parked the Lifeboat in a warehouse not far from Capitol Hill, and Lucy’s just laid out the plan, which is...not exactly as expected.

Wyatt shakes his head and holds up a hand. “You want me to go with Flynn? Seriously?”

Rufus rolls his eyes. “It’s 1899, Lucy’s a woman, and I’m black,” he replies. “So yeah. You get to go with Flynn to talk to some senators. Try not to kill each other.” 

“If it helps, I’m not exactly thrilled about spending the day with you either,” Flynn says. He’s off to the side again, leaning back against the edge of the Lifeboat with his arms crossed. The distance isn’t anything new—since he joined the team, it hasn’t been a team of four so much as a team of three _and_ Flynn. If he’s being honest, Wyatt isn’t entirely sure Flynn would mind if one of them kicked the bucket.

(At least, he’s not sure Flynn would mind if _Wyatt_ kicked the bucket, since Rufus is necessary as the pilot and Lucy is...well, Wyatt can’t say he’ll ever understand Lucy and Flynn’s relationship, but despite his cold shoulder it’s obvious to anyone that Flynn still cares about her)

Lucy glances between the two men and frowns. “If it’s really that much of a problem…”

Wyatt waves her off, forcing a smile onto his face. “We’ll make it work,” he assures. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Famous. Last. Words.

* * *

Flynn hadn’t been kidding about the cold. The warehouse had been fairly well-insulated, but it’s freezing outside, far colder than Wyatt’s ever been. He can’t help a small shiver even through all his layers and Flynn raises an eyebrow at his side.

“Southern boy can’t handle the cold?” He mocks.

Wyatt glares and covers a curse by adjusting his scarf. “We can’t all be from fucking Croatia.”

Flynn mutters something that sounds like _Clearly_ and Wyatt grits his teeth.

“Let’s just get this done, okay?”

“Fine by me.”

They finish the brief walk to the Hill in silence, the only other words exchanged before they go in the world’s shortest discussion on who is going to talk to which senators. Given how easily they get on each other’s nerves, splitting up seems like the best idea.

It isn’t.

Five minutes after Flynn leaves him, something hits Wyatt over the back of the head. He has just enough time to recognize the face of one of Rittenhouse’s favorite henchmen before the world goes black.

* * *

“Thank you, Senator Aldrich,” Flynn says smoothly, shaking the senator’s hand. “I appreciate your support. I’ll let you get to the floor.”

“Well, I appreciate your vote, sir. Lovely to meet you. Now if you’ll excuse me…” The senator ducks out of the room and Flynn lets his fake smile drop, rolls his eyes, and wipes his hand on his pants. 

In his opinion, there are some pieces of history that don’t deserve to be preserved, but he can’t deny the validity of Lucy’s earlier point. There’s a reason why some things are called necessary evils after all.

_Considering necessary evils…_ Flynn checks his watch and exits the senator’s office, glancing around the hallways to see if he can spot Wyatt anywhere. It turns out to be a fruitless effort.

_Leave it to Logan to not stick to a schedule._

It’s pure chance that he steps outside—it may be freezing, but the building is stuffy enough that he’s willing to risk the cold for some fresh air—and only then does he see the fallen figure across the way.

_Fuck._

Flynn runs down the Capitol steps and over to Wyatt’s unconscious form where he’s slumped next to a bench. Whoever knocked him out also took a good number of his layers and in this weather, his skin is already tinged bluish, his pulse slow enough to set off alarms in Flynn’s mind.

“Logan.” He shakes him gently, then more firmly, trying to get the other man to at least open his eyes. “Logan— _Wyatt_ wake up.”

He gets a groan in response, followed by a full-body shiver, but Wyatt’s eyes don’t open and Flynn swears heavily. The Lifeboat may not be far, but it’s far enough that Flynn doesn’t want to take the risk of dragging Wyatt there in this condition. No, he needs to get inside fast.

Flynn slings Wyatt’s arm over his shoulders and pulls the other man to his feet, wincing at the strain of dead weight. He breaks into the first house he sees—lucky for them, there’s no one there—and sets Wyatt down on the first bed he can find. Unluckily, when Flynn goes searching for blankets, furs, anything that could be helpful in their current dilemma, he only comes up with one. 

Swearing again, Flynn lays the blanket over Wyatt and starts tugging off some of his own layers to add to the pile. He might get cold that way, but he’s not the one with hypothermia so he can deal with it.

Wyatt still hasn’t woken up.

“Goddammit, Texas, work with me here,” he grits out. Wyatt shivers again, then nothing.

_Bet you think this is just hilarious, don’t you?_ He thinks at God as he reaches out to check Wyatt’s pulse.

This is really not how he wanted to spend his day. 

Flynn’s just settled his hands on Wyatt’s chest to start CPR when the other man shudders again, then coughs, and his eyes flutter open.

Wyatt’s teeth are chattering and shivers run through him from unseen fault lines beneath his skin, but he manages to pull a face at the sight of Flynn’s hands.

“You weren’t planning on kissing me, were you? You know, it’s polite to ask first.”

Flynn snorts and pulls his hands away. “I’ll remember that the next time you’re not breathing.”

“Didn’t say I’d say no.” Wyatt’s voice is distant, fading, and his eyes begin to slip shut again as another shudder rocks his frame. 

“Hey, no—” Flynn sets his hands on Wyatt’s shoulders and gives him another rough shake. “—Wyatt, you can’t pass out again. You have to stay awake.”

“So tired though,” Wyatt sighs. “So cold.”

“Wyatt—” Flynn swears and strips off the rest of his clothes before starting on Wyatt’s. 

“What are you doing?” Wyatt slurs, his eyes the barest slit of blue beneath his lashes. 

“What does it look like? Saving your life.”

“Taking off my clothes seems counter—counter—counterproductive to the getting warm thing,” he replies.

“It’s not. Now shut up and move your arms, Texas.”

“Always so rude…”

Flynn leaves Wyatt in his underwear and climbs into the bed behind him, refraining from speaking aloud the litany of curses and complaints that running through his head as he pulls the blanket around both of them. Wyatt hisses and flinches away when Flynn pulls him close, and it’s no wonder—Wyatt’s skin is ice, clammy and chilled, and the press of normal skin against him was probably close to scalding. Flynn pulls him back in anyway, wrapping his arms firmly around the other man until the heat of his own skin starts leeching away. 

“Thought you would have let me die,” Wyatt admits, breaking the silence after a long moment. His teeth are still chattering, but his skin is more cool than frigid which is at least an improvement.

It stings more than Flynn expects.

“You’re frustrating,” he replies finally. “You’re frustrating, and you don’t listen, and you’re obnoxiously self-righteous, far more so than you really ought to be. But I don’t hate you. And at least at the moment we’re stuck on this team, so, no, I’m not going to let you die. Even if you are a thin-blooded Texan.”

Wyatt laughs—a tiny thing, barely a puff of air, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Flynn rolls his eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”

After a moment he adds, “Besides, Lucy would probably be pissed at me if you died.”

That gets a stronger laugh, although it’s followed by a brief coughing fit. “That sounds more like it,” Wyatt says when he can breathe normally again. “And for the record, I don’t hate you either. Not anymore.”

“ _Anymore_ ,” Flynn scoffs. 

“Hey, you’ve tried to kill me a lot, I think previous hate levels were justifiable.”

_Eh. Valid._

Silence falls again and outside the sky slowly darkens. As the room becomes more shadow than light, Wyatt clears his throat, opens his mouth, then thinks better of it. Flynn’s willing to let it go until he does it a second time, and then a third.

“What?”

“Is this—” Wyatt cuts himself off and shakes his head.

“ _What,_ Logan?” Flynn repeats.

“Is this the first time you’ve held someone since your wife died?”

Flynn’s world tips on its axis, his stomach dropping the way it might on a roller coaster. For a moment, he slips away from himself, blood rushing in his ears cut through with the faintest echoes of gunshots, but then Wyatt shifts and his focus comes back to the present.

“Yes,” he acknowledges.

Wyatt nods once. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “It should have been...different.”

Flynn clenches his jaw and blinks hard to banish the sudden pricks of heat behind his eyes, but his voice is still rougher than he would like when he responds.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Wyatt insists, shifting finally to look at Flynn’s face. “It’s _not_ , but I appreciate it.”

There’s a moment, a beat in the dark, that’s charged with something Flynn doesn’t dare to think about, doesn’t dare to name. It raises the hair on his arms in a way that has nothing to do with the chill in the air and everything to do with the edge he hadn’t even realized they were skating.

And then he blinks and the moment is gone, the spark vanishing so quickly he wonders if he’d imagined it.

“Yes, well,” Flynn says, releasing Wyatt and putting at least an incremental amount of space between them, “We should be getting back if you’re feeling up to it. Modern heating will do much better for you than I can here. And Lucy and Rufus will be worried by now.”

“Right,” Wyatt agrees, pulling back as well. “Yeah. Of course.”

* * *

Rufus raises both eyebrows when the two of them show up back at the warehouse hours late with Wyatt wearing most of Flynn’s clothes, but all they really have to say is _Rittenhouse_ and that covers all manner of potential sins. If Lucy notices a change in the two of them, she doesn’t say a word, although Wyatt catches her glancing between them curiously when they return to the present.

“Well, it looks like the Senate ratified the treaty after all,” Rufus announces after a few clicks of his keyboard. “Puerto Rico is still a territory and American hypocrisy lives another day.”

“It’s a good thing we weren’t there any later,” Lucy says. “February 11th was apparently the coldest day on record that D.C’s ever had.”

“Yeah, that would have sucked.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wyatt sees Flynn slip out of the room. He doesn’t follow.

(They don’t talk about it)


End file.
